III. An ODE on the POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS of the 

 HIGHLANDS of SCOTLAND, confidered as the SubjecJ of 

 Poetry. Written by the late Mr WILLIAM. COLLINS: And 

 communicated to the R o Y A L SOCIETY of EDINBURGH , by 

 ALEXANDER CARLTLE, D. D. F. R. S. EDIN. Minijler of 

 ] N VERESK, and Chaplain in ordinary to his M A j E s T Y. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM. 



AT a meeting of the Literary Clafs of the Royal Society, held 

 on Monday igth April 1784, the .Reverend Dr CAR- 

 LYLE read an ode, written by the late Mr WILLIAM COLLINS, 

 and addreffed to JOHN HOME, Efq; (author of DOUGLAS, 

 sV.) on his return to Scotland in 1749. The committee ap- 

 pointed to fuperintend the publication of the Society's Tranf- 

 aclions, having judged this ode to be extremely deferving of a 

 place in that collection, requeftedMr ALEX. FRASERTYTLER, one 

 of their number, to procure from Dr CARLYLE every degree of 

 information which he could give concerning it. This informa- 

 tion, which forms a proper introduction to the poem itfelf, is 

 contained in the two following letters. 



Mr ALEX. FRASER TYTLER to Mr JOHN ROBISON, 

 General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



Dear Sir, 



AT the defire of the Committee for publifhing the Royal So- 

 ciety's Tranf actions, I wrote to Dr CARLYLE, requefting of him 

 an account of all fuch particulars regarding Mr COLLINS'S poem 

 as were known to him, and which were, in his opinion, proper 

 to be communicated to the public. I received from him the* 



inclofed; 



